Arkansas death row inmate Latavious Johnson died of unknown causes at the Varner SuperMax prison on Friday afternoon, according to the state’s department of corrections. He was in his 40s.
The Arkansas Department of Corrections did not provide Johnson’s cause of death and declined to comment further.
Johnson had received a life sentence for the murder of his father, Johnnie Johnson, in 2000.
Johnson was sentenced to death for the 2012 murder of a prison guard, Barbara Ester. Johnson had fatally stabbed Ester with a shank three times and punctured her heart, court records show. She had been investigating whether he had obtained a pair of unauthorized gym shoes in the prison.
Johnson expressed remorse for his actions in a statement his lawyers provided to police, court records show.
“I should have just gave the shoes up, just said to hell with it, asked someone to send me some money and order me some more,” Johnson told a police investigator in an interview after the killing, according to court records. “It’s too late for all that now.”
A corrections facility in Pine Bluff, Arkansas is named after Ester.
Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
FILE - Prisoners walk through a yard at the Varner Unit of Arkansas' Department of Corrections, Friday, Aug. 18, 2023, in Gould, Ark. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
MUMBAI, India (AP) — Shreyas Iyer was provisionally named in India’s squad on Saturday for the home one-day international series against New Zealand starting Jan. 11.
India will host the Black Caps in a white-ball engagement — three ODIs and five T20s — in the build-up to the 2026 T20 World Cup.
Iyer returns to the international fold after sustaining a spleen injury during an ODI against Australia in Sydney last October.
His selection is subject to fitness clearance from BCCI’s medical team and he will return as India’s vice-captain for the three-match series.
Skipper Shubman Gill also returns, after he missed the ODI series against South Africa in December. He had a neck spasm in the test series earlier, and subsequently played in the T20s against the Proteas.
Ruturaj Gaikwad and Tilak Verma missed out. Gaikwad had scored a maiden ODI hundred against South Africa in Visakhapatnam.
Rishabh Pant is retained as second keeper-batter behind Lokesh Rahul, who had stood in as captain against the Proteas.
Star batters Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma had both participated in the domestic List A tournament — Vijay Hazare Trophy — and return to the international stage for the ODIs.
All-rounder Hardik Pandya is fit, but not sufficiently enough to bowl 10 overs in an ODI. Thus, he has been rested further ahead of the 2026 T20 World Cup (in India and Sri Lanka) starting Feb. 7. Nitish Kumar Reddy is included in the squad.
Pacer Mohammed Siraj returns to lead the bowling lineup with Jasprit Bumrah rested again. Siraj had missed the South Africa series because of workload management.
The three ODIs will be played in Vadodara (Jan. 11), Rajkot (Jan. 14) and Indore (Jan. 18), with the five-match T20 series starting Jan. 21.
Squad: Shubman Gill (captain), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Harshit Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal.
AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
FILE - Captain of Punjab Kings Shreyas Iyer addresses a news conference on the eve of the final match of Indian Premier League at Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad, India, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki, File)
